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Monday,
March 14, 2005

INSTITUTE LAUNCHES
MEDICAID WATCH '05, A SERIES OF REPORTS
DOCUMENTING THE CASE FOR MEDICAID REFORMS TO REDUCE TOTAL SPENDING

ALBANY—The Public Policy Institute of New York State has launched
Medicaid Watch '05, a new series of reports designed to document
the case for reforms that reduce overall costs imposed on New York’s
taxpayers, businesses, farmers, and county governments.

Two one-page reports in the new Medicaid Watch '05 series will
be published each week for the next several weeks. The reports will emphasize
facts and statistics that highlight the differences in Medicaid spending
between New York State and every other state, said Robert Ward, director
of research for the Public Policy Institute and author of the reports.

The first report in the series was published today. It is called Virtually
Everyone Agrees Medicaid Costs Too Much. Will Albany Finally Act?
All of the one-page reports in the series will be available in PDF format
at www.ppinys.org.

Governor Pataki’s proposed budget estimates that total Medicaid
spending in the coming fiscal year will be around $45 billion in federal,
state, and local funds—but hospital workers’ unions and other
spending advocates want to spend even more, today’s report says.

“The program cost every New Yorker an average of $2,112 in fiscal
2003, the latest year for which national data are available. That was
2.3 times the national average, and far above comparable states such as
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and California,” the report said.

Reducing New York’s spending to merely twice the national average
would save taxpayers $5.3 billion, the report noted.

“Capping local increases, alone, won’t solve our fundamental
problem of Medicaid costing too much,” the report said. “The
Governor and the Legislature must also act to scale back New York’s
outmoded health-care system, restructure long-term care, and otherwise
control Medicaid costs. Not shift costs—control them. That’s
the only real answer.”